During the last decades, a large and ever-increasing number of explosive-carrying terrorists blew themselves up among random or selected victims, often inflicting heavy casualties to their intended targets and to passers-by, and also causing severe material damage and loss of life. Existing devices and methods for the detection of explosives carried by terrorists achieved only partial success, for numerous reasons.
Nowadays, the detection of terrorists mostly relies on guards positioned at the entrance of shops, restaurants and public buildings. These guards usually scan each individual by operating hand-held devices, such as metal detectors, or make them pass through a detection gate. In addition, personal belongings, such as purses and bags are searched through.
U.S. Patent Application No. 2003/0136052 by De Boer, divulges a revolving door, comprising a rotatable partition embodied such that in, at or on the partition one or more means for the detection of inadmissible goods are provided. Furthermore, U.S. Pat. No. 6,742,301 to Schwarz also discloses a revolving door, but with a metal detection function. Both inventions are a kind of automatic detection device, but are short of dealing with an uncovered terrorist.
The presently used terrorist uncovering scheme is dangerous, since a terrorist most often blows himself up when believing he has been found out, to kill guards and crowds of queuing-up bystanders. Thereby, security personnel which have to come close to a potential suicide bomber, stands high risks, which might impair their effectiveness.
It would thus be advantageous to first detect potential malevolent individuals and then retain them secluded in a manner that will prevent harm from bystanders even if they commit suicide by detonating a bomb.
Definitions
Individual, person, or pedestrian: generic name used interchangeably to indicate a person, sometimes walking or moving in one direction to pass from one place to another.
Crowd, or people: a plurality of individuals.
Sensor: a device for reporting or for measuring a physical, biometric, chemical, or physiological condition or parameter, as well as a surveillance and monitoring apparatus.